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Oculus Rift co-founder killed by gang trying to escape police
- jtchang 13y agoIt is always sad to lose someone in your community. The Oculus Rift seems like a pretty cool invention and hope things turn out well. What do you even say when stuff like this happens? He was a developer and in a way we never know when each of us will meet our ends.
- enraged_camel 13y agoA couple of weeks ago, one of the VPs in my company suddenly passed away. A day of vomiting and diarrhea, followed by hospitalization, and shortly after that, gone. He was 43 years old. Incredibly active, healthy and fit guy. He died of a very rare staph infection. By the time he was diagnosed, it was too late. I think the lesson is that life is really short, and you never know when it will end. So you better make the most out of the time allotted to you, and the fact that you don't know how long you have left should only fuel your efforts. R.I.P. Andrew.
- TwoBit 13y agoRare staph infection you say?? Was he recently in the hospital for an unrelated reason?
- waterlesscloud 13y agoIt's awful when anyone dies, but I have to confess this seems so much worse to me since he was on the verge of seeing the fruits of his labor result in a historic success.
- lmm 13y agoIt was getting hyped up by the tech press and he was doing what he presumably loved right up to the end. I think this was probably a pretty happy point in his life. For me, actually finishing a project like this means a brief rush of satisfaction and then a funk of ennui. I think I'd rather die while I'm still working on something than when it's finished, and certainly it would have been worse to go while the company was still scrounging capital.
- ninetenel 13y agomy heart goes out to his family and friends.
- junkilo 13y agoWe've lost one of our own. May the oculus team benefit -- not suffer from his passing. Makes me sad.
- sthkr 13y agoSeriously? :( this sucks.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- pastaking 13y agoI usually don't feel anything when I hear of a innocent person dying on the news, but maybe because he's involved in tech, I too am very angry. Why does the police have to chase anyway? Why can't they just identify the car and silently follow it until it stops. Damn it.
- deelowe 13y agoBecause it's more fun for them if they chase. Really, very rarely should it make sense for cops to endanger countless civilian lives to catch a criminal.
- kiba 13y agoMore fun? Imagine you're a cop chasing the car running though several red lights. That would be terrifying.
- danso 13y agoIf you're a patrolman then a car chase is probably one of the more exciting things you'll do, and it's a scenario that comes to mind when you first think of "this is what police do". In reality, you probably spend a lot of time checking mundane things, pulling people over (perhaps to meet a quota), and lots of paperwork and bureaucracy. Even if it is scary, I think it's possible that some officers won't back down from a chase. And this involved a chase of someone believed to be a public menace. (Sorry, not justifying the actual chase. Just pointing out that it's not strange that it occurred, given the status quo there)
- quesera 13y agoMost cities do not allow cops to conduct high speed chases in populated areas. But it happens and innocent people die, because the cops are on a righteous mission and shall not be deterred. I watched a 25 year old woman die on the pavement at 16th and Dolores in San Francisco, hit by a car running a red light, being chased by cops. Apparently the car had been reported stolen. Not a worthy mission, in my opinion. Note: of course it's the chasee's fault. But cops know exactly what happens in these situations, and cannot be excused.
- greenpizza13 13y agoThis kind of thing a meaningless waste. He didn't need to go this way. Really a tragedy.
- nutate 13y ago.
- mikeflynn 13y agoHorrible news. He seemed like a brilliant guy,
- flaktrak 13y agoso sad!
- sidcool 13y agoSaddened. RIP, sir.
- kenrick 13y agoThis is just awful
- haydenevans 13y agoJust terrible :( Why does it always seem like the worst and most insignificant wastes of human beings always take away great ones?
- est 13y ago> the worst and most insignificant wastes of human beings always take away great ones? Because you never cared about non-great ones. Observer bias.
- ori_b 13y agoBecause worthwhile people generally don't go around killing others.
- lostlogin 13y agoDon't be too sure - some of histories supposedly greatest people have also been mass killers. Your views on them largely just depend on which side of the conflict(s) you were on and what time you are in. To take a fairly simple example, Churchill. Lots of good, lots to admire. But plenty of dark decisions and many deaths attributable to these.
- yarou 13y agoBecause life is random and stochastic. The sooner you realize that your very existence was simply a roll of the dice, the more liberated you will become.
- soheil 13y agoJust because he wrote some code that was used so widely doesn't make him more significant than a janitor who cleans after you, or the "gang" member who was evading the brutal cops for a chance for his freedom. The sooner we realize people are equal because they're human fucking beings the greater hope for humanity to avoid its imminent demise.
- tomjen3 13y agoGang members are absolutely not equal humans, as they make their life by taking, not creating. Janitors do.
- slacka 13y agoIt's a sad day. His many contributions to the open source and the gaming communities will live on, like his work on VBjin-OVR, a Virtual Boy Emulator. http://code.google.com/p/vbjin-ovr/source/browse/oculus/CommonSrc/Render/Render_Font.h?spec=svn1ee8be125188906dcab23a818641453bc4e52b4e&r=1ee8be125188906dcab23a818641453bc4e52b4e http://code.google.com/p/vbjin-ovr/source/browse/oculus/Comm...
- tyoma 13y agoThis is extremely sad, but it made me think of an important topic: contingency planning. Pretty much every organization I've worked for was missing a "key developer got hit by bus" plan for at least one major project.
- HannibalLecter 13y agoHave you ever tried to talk to management about getting one of these plans together? They get mad at you for bringing it up and hexing the whole project! My experience is you instead treat it like a computer backup problem and you add the contingency that top managers will know how to step in if information goes missing. Also manage this with standards.
- Buttons840 13y agoIf that key developer did get hit by a bus then: 1) A new key developer would be hired to maintain the project, and things would be a little rough for a couple months but the company would survive. 2) Every decent person would care more about the key developers life than the "major project". This so called "bus factor" has always bugged me. Documentation is good, but talk of untimely death by bus is silly.
- statusgraph 13y agoI agree with you, but I think most bus factor considerations are about poaching/the developer leaving =)
- cperciva 13y agoThis so called "bus factor" has always bugged me. Documentation is good, but talk of untimely death by bus is silly. The reference to untimely death by bus strike is an example of macabre geek humour; not a serious suggestion that the greatest threat to developers is posed by motorized mass transportation. Most often developers leave projects -- and especially open source projects -- for far more banal reasons: They move to a different position and don't have the time or inclination to continue maintaining their old code.
- 13y ago
- Xanza 13y agoI just wanted to say two things here. One, this is an incredibly damaging tragedy. I truly wish the best for the community, for the Reisse and Oculus VR family. Secondly, my father has been an officer of the law for more than 25 years -- can we please not turn a thread which is being used to inform the community at large of a tragedy as a way to defame those who wish to do good in their community. I ask out of respect of Reisse, and my good natured father that we keep at the very least this thread on topic.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoSo because your father is a cop, you don't even want people to question the actions of the cops in the story? And anyway, so what? It sounds like the gang members were the ones out of control, not the police. If the police had struck Reisse that would be different, but they didn't. But then what if the police had done something reprehensible? Nothing should be said because we need to respect your good natured father? It's not about you or your father.
- eieio 13y agoI'm pretty sure Xanza simply means that Reisse's death is a tragedy, and a conversation about the death of an important member in the developer community is hugely different from an argument about the role of police in our society. Especially since internet discussions about police often turn into emotionally charged and hateful arguments, I think keeping the discussion focused on Reisse is a very good and respectful request.
- mpyne 13y agoHonestly they might as well change the name of HN to Digital Pravda or something. There is practically no story that can hit the HN frontpage now that doesn't turn into bikeshedding about how the U.S. is literally worse than Hitler and how everything is literally perfect in the EU. I'm not saying that the U.S. is perfect, or that the EU isn't, but does anyone else remember when HN was for NEWS and not just an outgrowth of /r/politics? I mean, obviously my comment won't change any of that, it's easy enough to see that the interest is there just by comparing comment count. But I do think it's unfortunate how much we have let politics poison the well here.
- dynjo 13y agoTerribly sad news, at least he got to experience the VR dream in his lifetime and see that Oculus is destined for the history books.
- mckoss 13y agoI was about to lament how reckless the police were to be in a high-speed pursuit, but it's hard to fault them when this began with a fatal shooting of an officer at the beginning of the encounter. Just a really sad turn of events.
- indrax 13y ago>there was a physical altercation between police and 26-year-old Gerardo Diego Ayala that ended with a fatal officer-involved shooting. That doesn't necessarily mean the officer was shot.
- guttermaw 13y agoIt was not. A man got out of the vehicle, the police shot him, and then the chase began. http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/05/santa_ana_pedestrian_police_ch.php?page=2 http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/05/santa_ana_pede... He died of his injuries. His name was Gerardo Diego Ayala.
- peter_l_downs 13y agoDoesn't seem to me like the police were the ones who hit Reisse: > Investigators allege 21-year-old Victor Sanchez and two > other suspects then took off in a Dodge Charger. With > Sanchez at the wheel, the Charger slammed into two > vehicles during the pursuit before hitting Reisse, police > said. (from the article.)
- neotek 13y agoThe argument is that the police should never be involved in a high-speed chase because it threatens the safety of the general public and often ends in tragedy like this.
- elleferrer 13y agoThis is truly upsetting. We just lost a brilliant mind and creative genius. RIP, Andrew Scott Reisse.
- aespinoza 13y agoWow this is just a couple of miles from our office. This is definitely shocking, and scary at the same time.
- djloche 13y agoSaddening news aside, this is terrible reporting. Reisse was killed in a car accident caused by gang members who were fleeing from the police.
- philliphaydon 13y agoRIP Andrew Scott Reisse, you wont be forgotten.
- sjtgraham 13y agoIt's always sad when someone brilliant loses life at such a young age. It's even worse that it was at the hands of a piece of shit criminal trying to save his own skin and is still alive. Very sad. Rest in peace.
- dataisfun 13y agoI totally agree. It's the fact that a degenerate like that can end the life of someone awesome--the asymmetry--is what is really curse-worthy hard to understand.
- Sukotto 13y agoI feel badly for his family and coworkers. :( Make sure you let your family know how much you care about them. Also make sure they will be taken care of in case you're suddenly gone. Firstly by picking up enough term life insurance to cover your dependents' needs until adulthood. Secondly by writing up a will and giving it to someone you trust. [1][2] We joke about "getting hit by a bus" and a project's "bus factor"[3] but it really does happen. It could happen to you or to a critically important person on your project team. Make it a policy to have all critical info recorded in some systematic way. You don't have to get all iso9000 but you should, at the very least, have everyone do a brain dump into a wiki once a month and keep it in a central location (along with the password file, list of client info, etc.) - [1] DIY will: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Your-Own-Last-Will-and-Testament http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Your-Own-Last-Will-and-Testamen... [2] Reasonably priced template: http://www.legalzoom.com/legal-wills/wills-overview.html http://www.legalzoom.com/legal-wills/wills-overview.html [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
- iamtherockstar 13y ago> I feel badly for his family and coworkers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2_d6Hwvh5I&t=36s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2_d6Hwvh5I&t=36s
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Chronic24 13y ago> I feel badly for his coworkers and family Reposting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2_d6Hwvh5I&t=36s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2_d6Hwvh5I&t=36s
- joeblau 13y agoMy prayers go out to the family and his colleagues. I was just watching the Kickstarter video about Oculus yesterday.
- kurd_debuggr 13y agoThis is really sad and a great loss to the community over in Santa Monica. With this sort of thing happening so infrequently in tech, it makes events like these all the more of a loss, for our entire industry. Condolences to the family and Oculus team.
- gohrt 13y agoThis happening so infrequently in tech makes it less of a loss. There are communities terrorized by criminal- and police-related violence, that lose so much more. Events like this should be a wake up call to be aware that tragedies happen all the time outside our bubble. And what can we do to prevent them?
- ck2 13y agoWas it responsible for the police to chase them at this time? two vehicles full of people involved in some type of criminal activity Was this yet another incident where the police self-escalated the situation? I sure hope there was a precise reason this happened and not that "they smelled pot".
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoHow can we even judge? The police back off often when they sense that a chase is too dangerous, they make a judgement call. Sometimes they don't have perfect information however, and shit just happens. It is not like the movies. I'm sure the officers involved are second guessing their behavior now, its not like people die every day like this. But really, its a tough job, we aren't really in a position to judge.
- ck2 13y agoPolice in the US are notorious for causing chases in dangerously crowded areas and endangering innocents. So much so they had to pass laws to make it illegal for police to do chases in many cities/situations to stop them. http://www.pursuitsafety.org/ http://www.pursuitsafety.org/ http://kristieslaw.org/ http://kristieslaw.org/ http://abcnews.go.com/US/police-chases-california-injured-10000/story?id=16605443 http://abcnews.go.com/US/police-chases-california-injured-10... More bystanders are injured or killed during high-speed police chases than by stray bullets. In California, more than 10,000 people have been injured and over 300 people killed because of police chases in the last decade, according to newly released statistics from the California Highway Patrol. Nationally, it's estimated nearly 300 people die each year as a result of high speed police chases.
- tnohtyp 13y agoNotorious? None of those links provide evidence to support that generalization, do you have a source that can?
- ramblerman 13y ago> Nationally, it's estimated nearly 300 people die each year as a result of high speed police chases. That's a huge number. I'd love to know how many of those 300 are innocent bystanders. The fact that people involved in the chase (i.e. those running away) lose their lives seems like it's part of the risk.
- ddispaltro 13y agoIt's so easy to focus on the bad in a situation like this but I wonder how many successful police pursuits that resulted in lives being saved. It reminds me of airbags, if they save 99% of lives but end up causing 1% of deaths then it is seen as a bad thing, but in reality it is really saving lives. It's just a terrible situation that's hard to understand, there is no black in white right answer.
- tomjen3 13y agoAnd they even let the driver recover in a hospital, at tax payers expense. And of course no mention of the officers name.
- Joeboy 13y ago> And of course no mention of the officers name. I'm guessing you think a police officer was killed, because of the ambiguous (I would say misleading) wording of the article. Or are you saying you want the name of the officer that killed Gerardo Diego Ayala?
- tomjen3 13y agoI want the name of the chasing officer. Not to harm him, I just want to show his family the picture of the guy their father helped kill.
- mpclark 13y ago>And they even let the driver recover in a hospital, at tax payers expense. What would you prefer to happen?
- tomjen3 13y agoThrough the guy in prison. He is a murderer, and he had an arrest warrent for parole violations; there is no question about his guilt. If we must spend the money, at least spend it on somebody who deserves it.
- ChrisNorstrom 13y agoAfter watching police chases on TV my whole life, I really want to know: What's the logical strategy in a police chase? Just keep driving after each other? It risks the lives of hundreds living and walking in the path of the chase all for the sake of punishing 1 or 2 individuals. It just doesn't seem to add up to me. What a shame we lost someone so brilliant for nothing.
- jthol 13y agoI believe a lot of departments have moved to giving up those chases for just that reason. I'm sure there are situations where they will/will not pursue though I'm not sure what the criteria are.
- tnohtyp 13y agoAccording to the article they killed a police officer and ran, if you don't pursue them how are you going to catch them? Aftersll, they did murder someone, and apparently they had warrants, so it seems reasonable to assume we dont want them out running around anymore as they sre likely to commit more fiolent crimes. Furthermore, if have a policy to not pursue, then every criminal is always going to run. The fault is on the criminals, not on the police trying to apprehend them or the pursuit.
- kevincrane 13y agoIs it feasible to just track them from above with a helicopter? That would reduce the number of speeding cars on the road at least.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoOnce police have drones high-speed chases become much harder to justify.
- Zolomon 13y agoI seriously doubt drones will cause less innocent deaths.
- csense 13y agoThe HN headline's grammar is ambiguous and could be improved. It could be read to mean "The co-founder was killed by a gang while he (the cofounder) was trying to escape police," or it could mean "The co-founder was killed by a gang while they (the gang) were trying to escape police." (According to the article, the latter meaning is intended.) The HN headline is still many times more informative than the linked article's headline, "Santa Ana police chase: Pedestrian identified." Even considering the newspaper's audience (who, unlike HN, might not know or care enough about Oculus Rift to merit its mention by name in the headline), the fact that the pedestrian was killed by a gang while the gang was trying to escape police would presumably still be of interest.
- bjliu 13y agoSo depressing...a grim reminder that some things are simply out of our control
- monocoder 13y agoThat's what happens when a government gives rights to it's citizens to own guns!
- venomsnake 13y ago<sarcasm>That is what happens when a government gives rights to it's citizens to own cars and have freedom of movement.<sarcasm/> He was hit by a car.
- Houshalter 13y ago*cars
- hga 13y agoGiven that happened in California, in an area where none but the rich and famous can legally carry guns in any manner, you're basically wrong (I grant that criminals have an easier time getting guns here, but they don't have much difficulty in many countries where guns are banned).
- venomsnake 13y agoThis is sad. Condolences to the friends and family. I do hope that this won't kill the momentum behind the Oculus Rift - seems like amazing piece of tech and will be sad to be lost because of that.
- scoot 13y agoUnfortunate choice of words...
- kickingvegas 13y agoRest in peace Andrew Scott Reisse. Cliché but true, nobody is ever promised tomorrow.
- vertis 13y agoThis reminds me of something my dad, a minister of religion, used to repeat constantly "No-one is promised tomorrow". I'm pretty sure he was trying to impress on a given audience "Repent now, you may not get another chance". I tend to approach it from a different angle. Be brilliant and live your life now, you may not get the chance to do so later. It sounds like he was doing awesome things, so one can only hope that his work lives on. My condolences to Andrew's family.
- kmasters 13y agoI believe if I remember correctly, LAPD had a stand down on high speed chases years ago due to the property damage and personal injuries of innocent bystanders. The police have a job to do, but in some areas, the level of aggression with which they pursue their duties is beyond reasonable and seems like adrenaline addiction.
- navs 13y agoMy co-worker and I were talking about the Oculus Rift only a few days ago. We finally got our hands on the Leap motion device and were thinking up wondrous mashups with the Oculus Rift. What a terrible tragedy. Such a pity he can't be there to witness the Rift's success.
- znowi 13y agoDamn, news like that surely make you note the fragility of our lives. Too bad. Condolences to the family. Keep yourself safe fellow hackers.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoThis is a good reminder to always be a defensive and aware pedestrian. Just because you have the light or the right-of-way doesn't mean you are guaranteed a safe crossing of the street. Whenever I cross an intersection as a pedestrian I always look both ways (even on one way streets) and I always keep an eye on cars that are still in motion, especially those that don't appear to be slowing down. It's good to make these sorts of things just an innate habit, it could safe your life one day.
- rocky1138 13y agoFrustrating, but true.
- entropy_ 13y agoI've grown up in Lebanon -- a third world country still recovering from a 15 year civil war(1975-1990). Traffic lights and rules are merely suggestions to people around here. If something is physically possible, like a car being able to fit in an pedestrian-only paved road or two cars being able to fit in a one-way street you can be sure that people will do it. It becomes an innate habit to always check both ways and never assume that a car will stop or slow down or that the driver has even seen you when you're crossing the road. It's not "you might get hit" if you don't, it's "you will get hit" if you don't. It's sad, but it's true. As an anecdote, there's a road that ends in an entrance/exit to a freeway that I use pretty frequently when driving from my home to Beirut. Two years ago, because the fact that the road was a 2-way road(people could use it to leave the freeway as well as enter it) was causing a lot of traffic they changed it into a 1-way road you could only use to enter the freeway, you had to leave from an exit further down the line. This reduced traffic jams immensely. However, before that could happen they had to go through several iterations on how to enforce this. First, a simple traffic sign was tried, this was largely ignored. Then they placed plastic barriers(those triangular things that can be filled with sand or water). Every night somebody would stop, get out of their car and move them to pass and things went back to how they were before the next day. Now they've closed it off with concrete barriers. It's working, but occasionally, especially at night, somebody will stop after the entrance, then back up into it and then use it as an exit. I once almost rear-ended someone doing that while I was going onto the freeway.
- Demiurge 13y agoW T F :(
- jader201 13y agoI've not been following the Oculus Rift very much, other than waiting for its release and keeping an eye on which games might support it once it's released. So I don't really know much of the history or the company. Can someone share how Reisse was involved w/ the Oculus Rift? Looking at the company's profile[1], it makes no mention of Reisse, and lists Luckey as the "Founder". Even searching their site[2] makes no mention of Reisse, other than a recent discussion[3] about his untimely death. And those discussions seem to only refer to him as an "employee". Is calling him "co-founder" in the title truly accurate? [1] http://www.oculusvr.com/company/ http://www.oculusvr.com/company/ [2] http://www.google.com/search?q=reisse+site%3Aoculusvr.com http://www.google.com/search?q=reisse+site%3Aoculusvr.com [3] https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1362 https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&...
- SolarNet 13y agoMany early employees are truly better called founders, just ones that didn't officially work at the company until after it's founding. He could have been moonlighting for them, he may have helped come up with the original idea, or work with the company to solve some of the core design challenges. Just because his title wasn't co-founder doesn't mean he wasn't as important as any other founder or early employee.
- jader201 13y agoI agree, and I wasn't trying to diminish his role. I was just trying to understand where the "co-founder" in the title came from. How did the submitter know he was truly a co-founder? I couldn't find mention of this anywhere, so I was assuming the submitter knew some history of him that I couldn't find on their site.
- serf 13y agoa guy dies, and the number one comment is a guy spouting off a public PSA about pedestrian safety?
- felipelalli 13y agolegalize the drugs and the gangs will die.
- samatman 13y agoLast night, I was walking to the store (the Walgreens next to the Berkeley Bowl, for you Bay Areans) and a drunk driver shot up onto the pavement about twenty feet in front of me. It was mere coincidence that my partner and I avoided the hospital or worse. This is a sobering thing to read the morning after that. Seriously: there was nothing I could have done to avoid that. By the time I was reacting, the car was already on the sidewalk. It was luck. Yeah, be careful out there, sure. Can we have self-driving cars REALLY SOON PLEASE? I hear rumors that they work, and don't drink on the job.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI had a similar experience about 20 years ago, except it was a car in front of me that got hit in the side. The occupants were seriously injured (I don't believe either of them died) but it reminded me how random life (and death) can be. I try to use that memory to motivate me if I'm procrastinating on something.
- krakensden 13y agoI don't know why, but I regularly see drivers who are clearly, obviously plastered, weaving about between the Ashby BART and the Shattuck/Adeline split.
- daeken 13y agoGet the plate, note the direction they're heading in, and call the police. That's what they're there for, and you may just save a life (or lives).
- sbuccini 13y agoBerkeley can get crazy, especially that area of town. Glad to hear you're okay.
- devrelm 13y agoHad a similar experience a few months ago while out with my wife in NYC. We had the walk sign at a Y intersection. A driver came through the turn going at least 30 mph. He came within an arm's length of hitting us. I definitely pay more attention now when crossing the road, even if I do have the walk sign.
- edo 13y agoF* this.
- boneheadmed 13y agoToo sad. What a loss. Condolences for the poor family. We never know the day or the hour when death will come, which is something to be mindful of. I have found this an interesting site to reflect on our eternal destiny: http://needgod.com/ http://needgod.com/
- bking 13y agoThis is horrible. The Oculus is just gearing up to be something great. It is kind of morbid, but This is going to turn into an interesting case study on how a company stays afloat when a major influence is removed from the picture. RIP Andrew Reisse
- moron4hire 13y agoYou can be a defensive pedestrian, but that's not always going to work. Something like this, a police chase, it defies predictability. It could happen so fast that it doesn't matter if you're completely present and aware, you could still get hit.
- jimmy90 13y agoGlad he is gone just another rich 30 year old. Where are my millions?
- jimmy90 13y agoGlad he is gone just another rich 30 year old. Where are my millions?
- mhartl 13y agoPeople are missing the main point here. This was a terrible, but not a senseless, tragedy, and there is an important lesson to learn. It's not "be more careful when crossing the street". Being a super-defensive pedestrian might have saved Andrew Reisse, but that's not the main point. It's not "don't have high speed chases". Perhaps different police policies might have averted this tragedy, but that's not the main point, either. The main point is that roving paramilitary gangs rule large swathes of Santa Ana, California, and virtually every other big city in America. These gangs have not been broken because the police lack the mandate to break them. (My father consulted for the Santa Ana police department for nearly 30 years; they feel powerless against the gangs.) The gangs probably wouldn't last a week against a vigorous application of military-grade force, but such an application of force is politically untenable at present. This means that the current political system itself is complicit. Don't blame the pedestrian or the police. Blame the gangs and the system that protects them.
- bilbo0s 13y ago"...The gangs probably wouldn't last a week against a vigorous application of military-grade force..." No... they would last much longer than a week. I'm going to recommend some reading to you: http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Corps-Counterinsurgency-Field-Manual/dp/0226841510 http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Corps-Counterinsurgency-Field-M... You don't go into neighborhoods, kicking in doors with guns blazing. They recently did that in Detroit to serve a warrant. Post Mortem: 1 dead 6 year old girl, 1 injured 72 year old grandmother, 0 arrests. Think of it this way... For every enemy, or (gang member), you kill, you create one. For every innocent you kill in pursuit of a gang member, you create 10 enemies. (Keep in mind, the people in the neighborhood KNOW who is innocent, even if you don't.) These are hard problems. They defy simple solutions. In fact, the application of simple solutions to this PARTICULAR class of problems only creates more problems.
- mhartl 13y agoThanks for the link to a counterinsurgency manual; here is my favorite work in the genre: http://www.civilwarhome.com/liebercode.htm http://www.civilwarhome.com/liebercode.htm It describes the code (developed by Prussian jurist Francis Lieber) used by the victorious Union to suppress armed opposition ("insurgency") in the defeated Confederacy after the end of the American Civil War. If you compare its prescriptions to those in the "modern" counterinsurgency manual you linked to, you will see why the Union succeeded where present efforts fail. You don't go into neighborhoods, kicking in doors with guns blazing. They recently did that in Detroit to serve a warrant. No, you start by declaring martial law and enforcing a curfew. Santa Ana's gangs are a military problem, and they demand a military solution. If you're serving warrants, you've already lost the battle. I understand that this is off the political map. That's the point. The kinds of policies needed to successfully defeat these gangs are anathema to prevailing civil libertarian views. But civilized 4th Amendment–style liberties only work when basic conditions of law & order hold; they don't work in a war. Indeed, when applied in a war, they only make things worse. This is why the present system, which serves warrants to soldiers in the opposing army, is complicit in their crimes.